Another year over..

Of my years that is, as tomorrow celebrates the start of my forty-fifth year. God, that sounds so ancient. Though I'm happy I got carded TWICE in the last month. My lovely friends are doing lots of nice things for my birthday, and my son made me a sweet card with an anime cat angel on it. Nothing says happy birthday like an anime cat angel.

Well, the mid-term election results were certainly a great birthday present. Is it wrong that I think it's funny that a dead candidate won the race for a seat on the Union County Soil Conservation board? If he was buried, then he's certainly doing his part. And did Comedy Central really break the Donald Rumsfeld story?

I'm reading Antonia Fraser's bio of Marie Antoinette. It's absolutely fascinating, and you can definitely see parallels between how royalty was treated and how we treat celebrities today. And the role of clothing, and jewellery in terms of how Marie Antoinette was regarded by the populace is pretty interesting.

This piece about the off-season vacation almost perfectly describes most of the off- and on-season vacations I have had in Britain. I always feel a vacation is not complete without one shitty day with nothing to do other than drink. Speaking of which, I have a birthday snifter to enjoy on this rainy day, courtesy of Pinky.

Grow-ers vs Show-ers

This is not a cheap pathetic ploy to increase my site visits, but rather a philosophical treatise on the nature of friendship.

I feel like you can split your acquaintances into two camps; grow-ers, who may not strike you particularly the first few times you meet them, but subsequently you discover all kinds of wonderful hidden qualities that endear them to you more and more; and show-ers, who wow you the first time you meet them with their wit or looks or friendliness, but the more you know them, the more you realize their charms are rather limited. And occasionally you will meet a show-er and a grow-er, who both wows you at first meeting, and continues to provide an odyssey of discovery as you get to know them.

I think I'm probably a grow-er. I hope.

Well, this does lead rather nicely into the sordid tale of Ted Haggard, that Mykull first drew to my attention. Sooo - does this mean in the Christian Right list of naughty things to not get caught at, that drug abuse and a hand job from a male prostitute are less heinous than having sex with said prostitute? Also, in that article, I particularly enjoy this quote:

'Church member E.J. Cox, 25, called the claims "ridiculous." "People are always saying stuff about Pastor Ted," she said. "You just sort of blow it off. He's just like anyone else in the public eye."'

Yea, that's what he said.

It's a brave new world out there. Who 'won'? I'm going to be an optimist and say the open source kids.

Who are you going to vote for on Tuesday? Please give this poor uninformed voter some clues other than the Independant voter's guide.

Russell Simmons is doing his civic duty by persuading robots to vote. Or something like that.